Transcriber’s Notes
The cover image was produced by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
The book contained two chapter 15s and two chapter 25s. The chapters were renumbered in sequence for ease of reading.
No table of contents existed in the original book. A simple table of contents was created by the transcriber.
Additional transcriber's notes at the end of the text.

THE
PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE,
Vol. IV.

Printed by A. Strahan,
New-Street-Square, London.

THE

PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE,

IN FOUR VOLUMES.
BY

MISS JANE PORTER,

AUTHOR OF THADDEUS OF WARSAW, SIDNEY'S APHORISMS, AND THE SCOTTISH CHIEFS.

I will confess the ambitious projects which I once had, are dead within me. After having seen the parts which fools play upon the great stage; a few books, and a few friends, are what I shall seek to finish my days with.

TWEDDELL.

VOL. IV.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1817.

CONTENTS.

[CHAP. I.] 1 [CHAP. II.] 17 [CHAP. III.] 45 [CHAP. IV.] 66 [CHAP. V.] 81 [CHAP. VI.] 107 [CHAP. VII.] 127 [CHAP. VIII.] 155 [CHAP. IX.] 169 [CHAP. X.] 181 [CHAP. XI.] 188 [CHAP. XII.] 201 [CHAP. XIII.] 218 [CHAP. XIV.] 226 [CHAP. XV.] 238 [CHAP. XVI.] 268 [CHAP. XVII.] 295 [CHAP. XVIII.] 311 [CHAP. XIX.] 327 [CHAP. XX.] 348 [CHAP. XXI.] 372 [CHAP. XXII.] 396 [CHAP. XXIII.] 410 [CHAP. XXIV.] 426 [CHAP. XXV.] 433 [CHAP. XXVI.] 449 [CHAP. XXVII.] 461 [CHAP. XXVIII.] 476

THE
PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE,
Vol. IV.

CHAP. I.

Some time elapsed before Louis saw the Marquis again; but when he re-appeared, it was to appoint him an interview with a lady of the court; and this ostensible confidant was no other than Her Majesty's self.

Santa Cruz's representation of Louis's romantic honour with regard to Countess Altheim, had excited Isabella's not less romantic taste for adventure; and she resolved to try her personal effect upon him, unaided by her rank. While she was considering this project, a person arrived from Vienna, speaking every where of the confusion which had taken place at that court, from an open declaration, on the part of the Arch-Duchess Maria Theresa in favour of Francis Prince of Lorraine. This news, by verifying one argument in the alleged innocence of Louis de Montemar, gave a respectable colour, in her now mind, to the really vain motive which prompted a clandestine reception of the Duke de Ripperda's son. In mentioning her design to his zealous friend, she hinted that such privacy was necessary; since the King had followed the flight of Ripperda, with a sentence of perpetual banishment. While unknown, she said, she could discourse more freely to the young Marquis, on the circumstances of his father's conduct; and, by remaining incognita, should she chuse the affair to end at that conference, her implied interference would escape expectation, or blame.

Santa Cruz bowed to a command that promised so fair, notwithstanding its professed doubts as to the issue; and, as it was to be kept a profound secret, he pledged himself, and performed his word, not to disclose her real quality to the object of her condescension.

While Louis exchanged his prison garments, for a court dress, the Marquis told him, he must not ground his father's defence to the lady he should see, on any argument of the Queen's precipitancy in politics. Her Majesty's consciousness was sufficient. Louis thanked him for his caution. And, no objection being made to the royal signet which Santa Cruz carried, they passed through the prison; and, without opposition, entered the carriage at its gates.

As they drove silently through the streets, the Marquis regarded the countenance of his companion. It was no longer pallid and dejected. His eyes were bent downwards in thought, but a bright colour was on his cheek; and the refulgence of an inward, happy animation, illumed every feature. Santa Cruz refrained from remarking on this change, so favourable to his cause; though he did not the less wonder how it could have taken place during the short interval since his first visit.

The fact was simple.—From that hour, hope had been his abundant aliment. Yet, not an implicit hope in frail humanity. He had lately learnt, to put no absolute trust in mortal power, nor any dependance on man.—He had been made to know, that blinded judgements are often with the one, and misguiding interests in the other; but he knew in whom he trusted! and the expression of hope in his countenance, partook of the sublime source whence it sprung.

When they arrived at Saint Ildefonso, vespers were concluded, and the King retired with his confessor. This circumstance was what Isabella anticipated, and determined her to name that hour for the appointed interview. A few minutes after Santa Cruz had conducted Louis into her pavilion, she ascended the steps. On hearing her foot on the pavement, the Marquis hastened to meet her; and, as she stood in the portico, and Louis remained in the room, he had an opportunity of taking cognizance of the lady who was to report his suit to her royal mistress.

She seemed about forty; of a low stature, and slight figure; with a countenance, whose acute lineaments, dark complexion, and quick, penetrating eye, announced alacrity of intellect, with an equal proportion of irritability and vindictiveness of mind. She conversed a second with the Marquis, and preceded him into the pavilion. He presented Louis to her, as the Marquis de Montemar; and named her to him by the title of Duchess Tarrazona.

Louis bowed respectfully; while she, so far forgot her assumed character, as to take no notice of his obeisance, though her rivetted observation lost not a line of his face or deportment. He raised his eyes from the share they usually took in his bow; but, encountering the sharp and investigating gaze of her's, he looked down again, and retreated a step back, with a second bow.—

"Marquis," said she, to Santa Cruz, "you may attend in the portico."

As she spoke, she turned into a secluded veranda; and waved her hand to Louis, to follow her.—He obeyed.

For more than an hour, Santa Cruz walked to and fro under the long double colonnade of the pavilion, before the Queen re-appeared on the threshold. Louis remained in the saloon. She stood apart several minutes, talking earnestly with the Marquis; and then withdrew, unattended, across the garden.

Not a word passed between him and his charge, until they were out of the confines of St. Ildefonso, and once more on the road to Madrid. Louis's countenance, all this time was meditative and troubled:—Santa Cruz at last said:— "The Duchess informs me, it shall not be her fault, if your suit be not favourably conveyed to the Queen."

"She is very kind," replied Louis, "but very extraordinary.—And, did you not assure me of her influence, I would rather avoid her interference. She appears too peremptory, to be a favourite with arbitrary power: and, though some of her discourse shewed a penetrating judgement, and great vivacity in the interests of Spain; yet, the rest was trifling; and absurdly foreign from our subject."

Santa Cruz warned his young friend to take things as he found them; and to be as respectful to the Duchess, as to the royal presence itself. He then enquired the particulars of what had passed.

Louis informed him, that so far from her Grace seeking information relative to the Duke de Ripperda's political conduct at Vienna, she continually interrupted the narration of those proceedings, with the strangest questions respecting the nature of his intimacy with the Empress.—And when she had received assurances and proofs, that it was purely confidential; contracted in early life; and, though continued, was ever in check to the interests of Spain; she repeated the same interrogatories again and again, with all the art and abruptness of consummate subtlety. At last, she demanded a minute description of the Empress's person, saying with a smile.—

"Marquis, your next attendance at Saint Ildefonso may give you an opportunity of judging between your Queen, and this boasted Elizabeth of Germany!"

"Should you be admitted to such an audience," observed Santa Cruz, with a smile, "you must not disappoint the expectations of the Duchess, in giving the palm of beauty to her mistress."

"She will be fairest to me," returned Louis, "who turns the most gracious eye on the truth of my father." "Hold that principle," rejoined his friend, "and I will not curb your sincerity."

From this day, the aspect of many countenances changed at Saint Ildefonso. The Queen was engaged in frequent conferences with the King; and the ministers, who severally used to make one in all the royal consultations, were totally excluded from these. Philip kept a strict silence on their subject; though his saddened physiognomy often declared how they perplexed him. The Queen alone wore an unaltered mien; yet the lynx eye of de Paz could often discern suspicion in her prompt accordance at the Council; and some unknown triumph, in the smile with which she bowed in devoted deference to the judgement of her husband. What was the object of all this, and what would be its end, were equally subjects of mystery and of apprehension to the newly-seated ministers; but not one of them suspected for a moment, that Ripperda, whom they had exiled, or his son, whom they had immured, held any connexion with the changing scene.

In the course of a week after the interview in the pavilion, Santa Cruz re-entered the state prison of Madrid, with the sign manual of the King, for the release of the Marquis de Montemar, and his servant Lorenzo d'Urbino. The young man was confined in a cell remote from his master; in equal ignorance with him, that the same roof covered them. Their re-union was joyous on the part of Louis, but full of overflowing transport on the side of Lorenzo; for his gaolers had tortured him with reports of his master's death; and assured him, that his own imprisonment would shortly be ended by the same violent means.

The governor of the prison was enjoined to conceal the release of the Marquis de Montemar from the ministers of the King, until Philip himself should send permission to officially announce it.

Louis was to be admitted the following morning to a private audience of the Queen. He was to go as a suppliant; and to pass from a dungeon, to his first presentation at a court, where his father had taught him to believe, he would one day be received as only second to royalty itself!—But he thought not of these circumstances. He had gained one great object, in obtaining the royal ear; and he looked with confidence to the event of the interview.

Santa Cruz was not less sanguine; and, with almost parental pride in the son of Ripperda, he conducted him to the palace, and led him into the chamber of audience. Her Majesty was alone, and seated in a chair of state. A magnificent dress shone through the large veil she had thrown over her face and person. On Louis approaching her, and on his being named, bending his knee to the ground, she rose, and threw up her veil.

"Marquis de Montemar," said she, with a smile, and extending her hand; "the Duchess Tarrazona has prevailed, and thus I promise my patronage to her client!"

Louis had entered in some agitation, and knelt with more at the feet of the Sovereign, who, he believed, held the honour and fate of his father in her hand. He now recognised the Duchess in the Queen; and every anxious doubt flying before the glad surprize, the sentiment of his heart shone out in his complexion and eyes. She translated this flush of hope, into a tribute to her charms; and graciously repeated her smile when he put her hand to his lips.

"Who will you serve, de Montemar," said she, "Elizabeth and Countess Altheim? or Isabella, and the Duchess Tarrazona? Chuse freely, for I love not bondage."

Conscious complacency beamed in her looks, as she spoke.

"My duty, and my heart," replied he, "are alike at Your Majesty's feet."

His heart was in his words and his countenance. The devotion of Ripperda had been reserved and stately; but in the animated answer of his son, there was a youthful fervour, a chivalric gallantry; which, being her soul's passion, subdued her at once to his interest. All her pre-determined caution vanished before it. She looked towards Santa Cruz.

"Give de Montemar your cross of the Amaranth," said she; "I will replace it to-morrow. When he returns from Gibraltar, he may wear it openly; now, it must be nearer the seat of truth."

Santa Cruz drew from his neck the purple ribbon, at which the brilliant cross was suspended, and buckled it under the vest of his young friend. Again Louis kissed the hand of the condescending Isabella; who continued to regard his graceful person with increasing favour, while she communicated the result of her mediation between him and the King.

So many baffled negociations for the restoration of Gibraltar had worn out the patience of Philip; and, as the fortress was evidently strengthening itself on the Spanish side, he had ordered similar lines of intimidation to be constructed at San Roque. But this did not awe the English, whose sovereign seemed on the eve of a quarrel with the new ministers of Spain; and therefore, Isabella seized the occasion to represent to her husband, the danger of allowing the British cabinet the incalculable benefit of Ripperda's discoveries and counsels. In pursuance of these arguments, she gradually gained her object with the King; and now informed Louis that she had obtained the royal command for him to go direct to Gibraltar, to lay before Ripperda all that was alledged against him, to offer him a fair and open trial, or a general amnesty; and which-ever he would prefer, should follow his election.

The trial was what Louis demanded.

"Grant my father that," said he, "and we ask no more."

"Bring him from Gibraltar," returned the Queen, "and nothing shall be withheld, that can gratify the honourable ambition of his son."

She then told him, that as it was necessary to keep these preliminaries from the knowledge of the ministry, he must neither visit the British Ambassador, nor the Val del Uzeda, nor even allow his name, nor his errand to be known, until he should have obtained the object of his mission.

"When you return, it will be with a companion," added she, "to whom, meanwhile, I pledge my restored confidence." She smiled, and disappeared. Louis looked gratefully after her. The Marquis would not trouble the hopes of his heart, by warning him that all this revered goodness arose from the dreams of vanity; and that both father and son must preserve its illusions, if they would continue in the favour she so largely promised.

Louis gave his arm to his friend; and with heads too full of busy thoughts, to give them immediate utterance, they repaired in silence to Santa Cruz's residence in Madrid.

A few hours completed every preparation for Louis's journey to Gibraltar; and the next morning, by day-break, accompanied by the faithful Lorenzo, he set forth on his momentous pilgrimage.

CHAP. II.

Hope having drawn him from sad meditations, as he rapidly pursued his way towards the south of Spain, he could not but obey the voice of nature, which called on him from valley and from mountain, to behold her vast and wonderous creations.

The royal province of Castile, traversed by rivers, and populous with cities, conducted him to the extensive plains of La Mancha. Here the palladian palaces north of the Guadiana, and avenued with glowing vistas, were exchanged for heavy and sombre hamlets spread under the shade of thick groves, and dark with the clusters of the black grape. But in architecture alone, these villages were gloomy and uninviting. It was the season of the vintage, and the whole scene teemed with life and gaiety. Louis passed through it, enjoying with the sympathy of benevolence, the happiness he saw. In front lay a mountainous desart. Here he exchanged his vehicle for two stout mules used to the precipitous road; and with Lorenzo, entered the new region.

They were now in the Sierra Morena, which separates La Mancha from the Hesperian vales of Andalusia. The passes of the mountain were long, winding, and melancholy; but the moment he crossed its high misty ridge, Louis felt a difference in the atmosphere, amazing and grateful in its contrast, as the luxuriant landscape before him, when opposed to the frowning sterility behind.

"That is Andalusia!" exclaimed Lorenzo, pointing down to the fairest piedmont of Spain. Louis knew there was not a rill or a hillock in that ample province, which did not once owe tribute to his family; he also knew how they had been lost; and with mingled feelings, he turned to the careless voice of Lorenzo, remarking on the beauties of the view.

On one side, towards the east, extended the pastoral hills of Jaen, backed by the snowy summits of the distant Sierra Nevada of Grenada; the last retreat of the Moors, before their final expulsion from Spain. Louis thought on the latter circumstance, as those storied mountains stood bright in the glowing sky. He recollected, that amongst these persecuted people, was Don Ferdinand de Valor, one of his own progenitors; and that his attachment to the Moorish cause had occasioned the first sequestration of the Ripperda territories to the Spanish Kings. He did not utter his reflections; but deeply ruminating, gave the reins to his mule, and slowly descended the heights.

With this humble equipage, and by the side of a single attendant, he entered the principality of his fathers. Over those very hills and vallies, where the heroes of his name had conducted armies to assist or to repel the sovereigns of Spain, he was journeying to seek the representative of all their honours, an exiled fugitive in a foreign land!—But William de Ripperda was not less worthy of their blood! And the last of their race, did not blush at the banishment of a parent, whose crimes were his virtues.

"My noble, glorious father!" exclaimed he, inwardly, as he looked upwards; that look conveyed his vow to heaven. To think only of that father; to exult only in his virtue; to mourn only his affliction; and to regard his weal or woe, as the only future objects of his own.

When he crossed the Guadalquivir, Lorenzo checked his mule.

"From this spot, to the banks of the Xenil;" said he, "a track of many leagues, is the Marquisate of Montemar. The castle stands on a high promontory, far to the west, on the latter river. I never shall forget the joy of the country, when the Duke de Ripperda paid it a visit, on his return from Vienna."

Louis looked on the silver flood, on each side of the noble bridge they were crossing. He, then, was lord of that branch of the magnificent Guadalquivir! The lands he saw bore his name; the people who tilled them, owed him homage; and he was passing through all, a stranger, and unknown!

He descended from the bridge into a sinuous track, between long plantations of olives; under whose refreshing foliage, the low vines, and the waving corn, were alternately spreading their clusters, or their yellow tops to the sun. Here again, were the reaper, and the joyous treaders of the wine-press. He listened to their jocund voices; their guitars, castanets, and bounding steps; and he could not forbear thinking, with some emotion of displeasure; how little did the memory of him live in their hearts, whose paternal policies had secured to them the fruits of their labour! As long as they were happy, it seemed the same to them, whether their benefactor were on a throne or in a prison!

But it was human nature, consistent with itself, which forgets the Providence that blesses, in the enjoyment of his gifts. The friend of man must, therefore, imitate his Creator; and pouring his good on those who need it, the just and the unjust, look for gratitude in the world to come.

The travellers again occupied a wheeled carriage, and pursued their journey with rapidity. In some parts they traversed extensive forests, sublime in sylvan grandeur; then they wound through the shady defiles of intersecting hills, or passed through towns and villages, whose light and airy architecture bore evidence of Moresco origin; all around was a fair garden. But there was a bound; a wall of mountains rose before them, shooting up into the azure heavens, in sharp and menacing peaks.

Here they resumed their mules. The first part of the ascent was gradual; and as Louis mounted the rugged acclivities, (sometimes on foot, to scale the highest points, while his beast rested;) he saw, winding along the less abrupt tracks, the shepherds of the plains, driving their flocks to the recesses of the upland pastures. The practice is the same in Scotland; and the similitude pleased one, who had passed some of his happiest hours amongst the Highland hills.

But the image of him, who was then his dear and trusted companion, rose with the remembrance. He saw him bounding down the breezy height; his plaid streaming in the air; and his feathered bonnet in his hand, as he whistled gaily, and waved him from afar. Louis closed his eyes, to shut out the association with the scene; but it would not do. The glad smile of perfect confidence still shone on the visionary lip; the eyes of the persecuting phantom continued to sparkle with greeting intelligence; and even his voice seemed to sound in his ear!—Louis shuddered to the soul, and spurring his mule, dashed forward amongst beetling rocks and caverned ruins. They had once been a magnificent work of man. An aqueduct, built by the Romans; and its remains clasped the mouth of the pass which leads to the interior of the mountains. Hence it was called the Puerta de Ronda; as these were the peaks of that name, which stretch their stony ramparts between the plains of Andalusia and the borders of the sea. The Sierra de Ronda surpasses in desolate grandeur, even the sublime wastes of the Morena mountains. No vegitation crowned these vast colossal rocks; bare to the sun and tempest, they looked like the huge altar of nature, to which avenging Jove bound the consuming, but still immortal Prometheus. All around was either acclivity or precipice; and from between two high pyramidal craggs, Louis caught his first view of the Mediterranean.

A small fishing town was scattered about a little bay at the foot of the mountain. Lorenzo proposed hiring a vessel there, to take them immediately round to Gibraltar; and his master readily acquiesced in a plan which would exempt him from the obstacles that might accrue, should he enter the fortress by the Spanish lines. Louis was to remain in the mountain, to watch the mules, and Lorenzo descend by a near foot-path he had discovered cut in the precipice, to the sea shore. Before they parted, a spot was fixed on amongst the rocks, as a place of rendezvous.

When Lorenzo was gone, Louis bound the animals to the remains of an old wooden cross, which had been erected to mark a place of murder; and putting down their corn before them, on a spot where grass would never grow; he ascended a higher promontory, to see whether he could discern any part of the embattled heights of Gibraltar. But the lofty crest he sought was not within the mountainous horizon. Broken pinnacles of granite, shattered by the deluge; and fathomless abysms, that made the eye giddy even to glance at, hemmed him around. As he contemplated the hideous solitude, voices suddenly sounded near him. It was not his intention to listen, but before he could move, he heard the name of his father, pronounced in a rough, guttural tone. He paused breathlessly. The speakers were invisible; and the last who spoke, continued affirming to the other, that "the Duke de Ripperda was still as able as he was willing, to reward all who did him service." "Prove it to me," replied his comrade, "and you shall find me ready."

"Look at this purse of ducats!" replied the other, "he will load your felucca with bags of the same, if you carry the merchandize he bargains for!"

A low shelving cliff, and some broken rock, divided Louis from the speakers. He saw the dark points of their Montero caps, under the cragg; and vaulting from his more elevated situation, stood before them. They were two strong-bodied men, with fierce, independent countenances; and starting on their feet, they also stood resolutely, and eyed the no less commanding, though youthful figure, which so boldly advanced to them.

Louis saw by their wild garb they were smugglers, and of the Gustanos tribe, the gypsies of Spain. Lorenzo had pointed out some of these people to him in the Sierra Morena; and explained their daring lives, with their outlawed condition. Some carried on their desperate traffic on the high seas, and others, in wandering bands, vended their forbidden merchandize over the face of the country. But they all called themselves Seranos; being the generic name for the inhabitants of these fastnesses of nature; and as such Louis addressed them.

"Brave Seranos!" cried he, as he approached them; "you speak of the Duke de Ripperda, as if you had seen him lately. I am seeking him, and any facility you may give me, shall not be unrewarded."

The men looked on each other; but the elder of the two, striking the head of a huge hatchet into his belt, to shew he was in a condition not to be trifled with; answered Louis, by demanding in his turn, how he knew that they had any concern with the Duke de Ripperda.

"By accident. I stood by my mule, on the other side of the cliff; and heard you discourse of the Duke, as if you had recently parted from him. Was it at Gibraltar?"

"No."

"Where, then?"

"If you are an emissary of his enemies," replied the smuggler, "you had best return to your mule. I am not the man to betray a friend."

The blunt honour of the outlaw bore its own evidence to Louis; and without a second thought, he answered:—

"I am his son."

"It may be so;" replied the man, "but you are also a courtier; and flesh and blood of that cast are rarely to be trusted. If you dare face the truth, follow me. You will find a man behind that rock, who may tell you what I will not."

"Who might I see there?"

"One that knows whether the Duke de Ripperda has a son."

"His name?" demanded Louis, who observed a strange, treacherous leer in the wild countenance of the other man.

"Martini d'Urbino," returned his comrade.

Louis did not hesitate: "I follow you."

The smuggler led the way, down a circuitous ravine, to the mouth of a cavern. Several mules were feeding near its entrance. Louis heard the sound of boisterous jollity; and as he advanced, he discerned, in the depth of the cave, many persons seated on the ground, under the light of a huge iron lamp that hung from the roof.

Had he wished to recede, retreat would have been impossible. But all thoughts of personal hazard were lost in the one eager desire of learning some certain tidings of his father. The smugglers' communications to each other, being uttered when they were ignorant of being overheard, and, therefore, when they could have no intention to deceive, had awakened doubts in him of Ripperda having reached Gibraltar. Perhaps he had been overtaken by his enemies; and was now secretly managing with these adventurous men, to effect his escape from some second Alcazar in the bosom of the mountains! The minister's silence to Santa Cruz, or even to the Queen, on such a re-capture, was no argument against its probability; and impressed with these apprehensions, Louis hurried onward, impatient to see Martini, and to learn how he might yet reach his father.

At the mouth of the cavern he stopped. His guides drew close to him. They saw no sign of intimidation in his face; and the former spokesman stepping forward, announced to his comrades the arrival of a stranger, who called himself the son of the Duke de Ripperda. Every man rose at a moment, and with a murmur, and a clangor of heavy arms against the rocky floor, that might have appalled more veteran nerves. Louis comprehended his danger. His eye had ranged at a glance through the crowd, and he saw no Martini. He recoiled a step, and placing his hand on his sword, said in a firm voice:—

"Gentlemen! I am here, on the faith of that man. He brought me to meet Martini d'Urbino, my father's servant; and I demand to see him."

The smuggler put his hand upon the arm of Louis.

"Signor, you have a stout heart. From that alone, I believe you to be what you say. Enter the cavern, and you will find the man."

The smuggler turned, and said something in an unknown language to his comrades. Louis regarded him with a dauntless, but stern brow; for while he spoke, the men drew gradually around, though at some little distance, muttering to each other, and fixing their eyes on their prisoner. Such Louis believed himself to be. The only point that was open for his advance was into the cave. All seemed vacancy there, excepting the pendent lamp, which shewed the fragments of the yet unfinished revel.

"Can my father be reduced to league with men like these?"

It was frenzy to suppose it; and if it were not so, Louis himself were lost. He had gone too far to retreat; and with a step, which announced the resolution with which he would defend his life, should it be assailed, he went forward into the den.

The captain of the band followed him. He passed him, and was immediately obscured in the deeper gloom of the interior rock. Louis saw no human being in the wide range, though many might be hidden in the shadowy depths of its farther excavations. He fixed himself with his back against the side of the cavern; and with his hand on his sword, stedfastly regarded the spot where the smuggler disappeared.

His comrades remained without, and evidently watched any egress unsanctioned by their chief.

Louis heard the advance of hasty steps from the interior vaults. He planted himself more firmly in his position, and half drew his weapon. The smuggler emerged from the recesses with another person, and in the instant of his appearance, pointed to Louis, and said to his companion:—

"Do you know that cavalier?"

The twain were in the deepest shadow of the rock; hence Louis could not distinguish, otherwise than by the voice, which of the two were his conductor. But himself being on a spot where the light fell direct on his face, the immediate response to the demand of the smuggler, was an amazed cry:—

"It is the Marquis de Montemar!" "'Tis well!" rejoined the outlaw, "else he must have slept without his ancestors."

The voice of him who had recognised Louis, was indeed Martini's; and that faithful servant was the next moment at the feet of his master's son.

The smuggler joined his comrades on the rock; and Louis immediately enquired the fate of his father. To his astonishment, Martini informed him that more than two months ago, that very man had conveyed the Duke to the coast of Barbary.

"Had he been refused admission into Gibraltar?"

"No; he had never sought it."

"What was his object in going to Barbary?"

To this, Martini gave a confused and unsatisfactory reply. All that Louis could gather from his agitated and sometimes contradictory accounts, was, that after their escape from the Alcazar, and during their progress towards the sea, his master never emerged from an intense reverie, except to give orders; and then he only delivered his commands and strait was profoundly silent again. It was not until they reached the borders of the Mediterranean, that the object of his meditation seemed explained. While Martini was foddering down his weary mules, Ripperda entered the shed, accompanied by Roderigo the smuggler. In few words, he declared his intention to embark that night for Tangier; and asked Martini whether he chose to share his fortunes in that land, or to return whence he came. Martini swore to live and die with him; and the next sun rose upon Ripperda in the kingdom of the Moors.

This intelligence confounded Louis; it was so contrary to his father's written intention, and so totally inexplicable on any principle of his former conduct. While Martini gave his hurried narration, he did it with evident fear of saying too much; and yet he appeared hovering on the point of saying more. Louis told him, there was something in his manner that excited his suspicions. He feared he withheld some communication, which, as the son of the Duke de Ripperda, he ought to know. Martini's confusion encreased with the earnest remonstrance of his young master; and, at last he confessed, that the Duke was engaged in some projects, the consequences of which he dreaded, but he was bound by oath not to betray.

"His Excellency," continued he, "has laid the same bonds on Rodrigo; who, with other men of his trade, are sworn to serve him. My present errand to Spain, was to bring away certain treasures he left at the Castle de Montemar. They are now on the backs of the mules you saw feeding without; and, by to-morrow night, they will be in Barbary."

Louis was lost in conjecture. "Are you sure, Martini, my father received no insulting repulse from Gibraltar?"

"I am sure, he never made any application there."

"It is very extraordinary!—But you dare not satisfy me. I will know it all from himself; and, whatever may be his reasons, his destiny shall be mine."

Martini now acknowledged to Louis, that Ripperda's indignation was so high against him, there could not be a hope of his admitting him to his presence.

"Every day, my Lord," continued the faithful creature, "he names you in his general maledictions on the ungrateful world; he names you in terms, that I have often deprecated from you on my knees; and, as often he has commanded me from his sight, till I knew how to distinguish between loyalty and parricide."

"But I do not deserve his curse, Martini," replied Louis, "and I will appear before him. He shall not want a comforter, and an honourable confidant, while he has a son. You must engage this Rodrigo, to give me a passage in his vessel."

Martini went out of the cavern to prevail on the smuggler to this purpose, and Louis was left to his bewildering thoughts. That he saw the usually festive spirits of the Italian so completely subdued, redoubled the uneasiness with which he considered the vow that had been exacted from him and the smugglers. Louis's open and honourable mind shrunk from such ill-assorted mystery; till finding some condemnation of his father in this repugnance, he reproached himself for having conceived the nameless dread he felt creeping over him. He recalled his injured parent's undeviating career of public virtue; he dwelt on the magnanimous features of his character; and could find no argument in either, to sanction his present inexpressible forebodings.

"Yet why," cried he, "does he take refuge with infidels; why associate his honourable name with these desperate men?"

After he had settled with Rodrigo the terms of his voyage to the opposite coast; he and Martini repaired to the rock he had appointed to Lorenzo for their mutual rendezvous. Lorenzo was sitting by the mules, anxiously awaiting the appearance of his master, when he descried him on the heights with his companion. It was now deep twilight; but the light was sufficient when the latter drew near, for Lorenzo to recognise his brother; and the lively pleasure of their meeting, was only checked by recollection of the calamitous situation of their respective lords.

Lorenzo informed his master, he could not procure a boat to go round to Gibraltar; the strait being too much infested with Barbary pirates, for small vessels to put to sea. Martini sighed heavily, at this information. Louis attributed it, to apprehension for the treasure he had to convey, and made a remark to that purpose.

"No," replied the Italian, "Rodrigo carries a safe conduct; nevertheless, I am Catholic enough, to wish every corsair at the bottom of the sea!"

A few minutes communicated to Lorenzo, that his master's voyage was now to be to Barbary, where the Duke de Ripperda was already arrived. The faithful servant regarded all places alike, to which he was to follow his Lord; and, having received his orders, he went apart with Martini, to discuss, with freedom, the subjects most interesting to them both.

The night was balmy and serene; and Louis kept his station in the open air. After their conference, the brothers drew near, and slept by his side; but he watched and mused, and silently prayed to Him who was above the stars. The moon arose. As he contemplated that lovely planet; considering it as walking in beauty and loneliness, like the youthful saint who had urged him to persist in the virtue that was his principle, he could, almost, have bowed to the bright similitude. But, when he recollected that, by the vague light of this very moon, the secret depredator crept from his covert; and each deed that shuns the ken of man, steals upon his slumbers, he shuddered; and turning from its beams,—beheld the long shadow of a figure approaching him. It was Rodrigo from the beach beneath. He came to say, that his men were on board, the packages stowed, and all were ready to sail.

In the course of half an hour Louis found himself on board an out-law's vessel, with the crescent of Mahommed flying from the mast. This, was the "safe conduct" Martini spoke of; and was sufficient to protect him from the corsairs. Their light galliots scudded by in every direction, and hailed the smuggler as he passed; Rodrigo stood on the deck with a turban on his head, replying, through a trumpet, in the barbarous slang of rapine.

The dark blue sea, innocent of the guilty keels which shot across its bosom, heaved its reflecting waves under the brilliant orbs of a midnight African sky. All was tranquil; all in harmony with the first fiat of its creator; excepting the breast of rapacious man; excepting the heart of an anxious son, ruminating on conjectures, hopes, and fears. He leaned on the railing of the deck, in a more wretched state of mind, than he could have believed possible to be his, when approaching the goal of his many prayers: the presence of his father. There was something within him, that would not be satisfied with his present companions; with his father having made such men his confidential agents; and, in the midst of his troubled thoughts, he often murmured to himself—

"Oh, why did he fly!"

The night continued bright, and the wind fair; and, having smoothly passed Europa point, the little vessel turned into the strait between the far-famed pillars of Hercules,—Calpe and Abyla. Louis gazed on both; on the fortified heights of the one, on the barren cliffs of the other. He thought on Gerizim and Ebal.—On one, rests the blessing; on the other, the curse! "Chuse ye, between them!"

CHAP. III.

The next day, being a religious feast of the Moors, it was midnight before the christian crew thought it safe to draw towards the shore. They then ran their bark into an obscure creek, about a league from the town of Tangier. A dull flame, which gleamed on the summit of the rock, as if feeding on its surface, was the mariner's guide through the intricate navigation. The cliffs were high and close; therefore all was black darkness, excepting where this phosphoric beacon opened its wandering fires.

A dead silence was maintained, during the working of the little ship into its place of refuge; and, not until its bulging sides grated against the point of landing, did Louis receive any intimation of their being near the place of disembarkation. Martini pressed his arm, and whispered—

"We must now go on shore; but continue silent, till we reach the Hambra."

Rodrigo and the Italian jumped from the head of the vessel, upon the land. Louis followed his conductor; leaving Lorenzo in the ship. For nearly an hour, the cautious tread of their footsteps was all that disturbed the profound stillness. They passed many low, flat-roofed dwellings, whose inhabitants were shut in from even the light of the stars, performing the last rites of their solemn feast. Such gloom was in memory of the shadows which enveloped their prophet in his flight from persecution; and to invade it by noise or intrusion, would have been deemed sacrilege; and the blood of the transgressor must have expiated his offence.

After their almost unbreathing passage along this populous road, they struck into an avenue of date trees, and stopped before a building of more spacious dimensions. Martini turned a key in a small arched door, and gently opening it, they all passed through a short paved arcade, into a court open to the sky, and dimly lighted under its pillared aisles at the sides, with four painted lamps. A fountain in the centre was discovered by the transient sparkling of its waters as they dashed into a marble bason below.

Here silence was broken; and Martini told Louis, that although his father was under that roof, he durst not introduce him immediately to his presence. In the Duke's present exasperated state of mind, such an abrupt entrance might destroy at once, every object of the interview; and therefore he conjured him, to wait until His Excellency were at least apprised of his arrival.

Louis had no resource but to remain where he was. He had too much dependance on the honesty and discretion of Martini, to doubt his prudence in this precaution. If the gloom around him were great, that in his mind was of a deeper shade. He was alone; for the smuggler had followed Martini. An hour elapsed in this irksome solitude. He listened for the sound of a voice, or an approaching step; but the silence continued unbroken. His suspense became intolerable; composure was no longer in his power to assume. He paced the mosaic floor, with every agitating conjecture; envying even the feelings of anticipated murder, with which he awaited the first mysterious interview in the lonely chateau of Phaffenberg. At last, the Italian and Rodrigo appeared at the extremity of the court. The smuggler turned away through a dark colonnade; and Martini advanced to Louis, who had darted towards him.

"Follow me, Signor; my Lord consents to see you."

It was a cold welcome; but Louis thought not of the words, since the permission was granted. He hastened through the arcades, to a large curtained door.—Martini drew it back, and Louis beheld the honoured object of his long and filial pilgrimage. The Duke was standing with his back to him, reading a scroll of paper. Nothing that was not purely the son, was then in his labouring heart; and he was advancing to throw himself at his father's feet, when Martini spoke:—

"My Lord! The Marquis de Montemar."

Ripperda turned his head.

"Let him wait my leisure," and, looking on the paper again, sternly resumed his reading.

Louis stood.—The face of deadly paleness, the eye's livid flash, and the deep, emaciated lines, furrowed with every trace of the burning volcano within, filled him with a dismay, even more terrible than the fierce estrangement this reception announced. But it was only for a moment that his astounded faculties were transfixed by the direful apprehension. He was his father still; his noble, injured, suffering father! and, rushing forward, he flung himself on his knees before him, and covered his face in his robe; for the hand he would have grasped was withheld.

Ripperda's breast was locked.—

"What is it you require of me?" said he, "The minion of two Queens must have some reason for bending thus low, to the man the one has dishonoured, and the other betrayed!"

Louis looked up in that implacable countenance: He attempted to speak, but no sound obeyed. He struggled for his father's hand, and wrung it to his heart. Ripperda stood cold and collected.

"What would you yet seek of me? I have no longer fame, nor riches, nor power to bestow. These were your idols! Deny it not! They were my own! I found their food ashes. But the draught that turned my blood to poison, was the desertion of my Son."

"Hear me, my father!" at last burst from the lips of de Montemar, as he clung around that august, but torpid frame. No warmth glowed there, but the gloomy flame of vengeance; no responsive throe whispered there, that sympathy and forgiveness were within. The very stillness with which he suffered, without returning or reproving this agonized embrace, smote his son the more severely to the soul. Yet he thought he saw more resentment, than the object of his lately conceived apprehension, in the stern calmness of his father; and hoping to prevail by reason, where reason yet reigned, in a less agitated voice, he repeated.

"Hear me, and then condemn me! or believe me, and acquit me, before the tribunal of Heaven and your own justice!"

Ripperda, with the same unmoved air, replied:

"Speak what you have to say; I will attend."

He pointed to a sofa, for Louis to sit. He obeyed; and his father sat opposite to him, folded in his mantle. His eyes were bent to the floor, except when he occasionally turned them in deep suspicion upon the earnest narrator. Not one oral remark escaped him, till the communication was brought to an end. He then looked up, and slowly pronounced:

"Tis well; and the tale is marvellously told: But I have no connection with its truth, or falsehood."

"Yes, my father!" returned Louis, "It contains your justification; the acquittal of your son; and the atonement of your repentant sovereigns!"

"My justification is here!" exclaimed the Duke, proudly striking his breast, and starting from his seat. "And for atonement! Heaven and Earth cannot atone for my injuries. Tell your Queen, that William de Ripperda was not born to quail to any man; nor, to hold his honours, by flattery to a woman. I served the country of my ancestors for its own sake; neither in homage to her, nor to the King. I devoted myself to the prosperity and peace of the world. But they rejected peace: And, they shall find a sword! All have spurned me! I am thrust out from Europe. And, when I have found a land of refuge, they would ensnare me to return! And, I will return! Return with desolation and death! For Christendom, ungrateful Christendom, has sinned beyond my wish to pardon."

"How am I to comprehend you, my father?"

"You cannot comprehend me. I would not be comprehended by a Spaniard! You were once my son. And, you have satisfied me, you meant to be loyal to me: But you cannot serve two masters."

"What master would oppose my serving my father? If you mean the King of Spain, your own inexpugnable honour would not raise an arm against him; and he will not, cannot, prevent me dedicating my life to you!"

"My honour, Louis! Christian Knights have honour! The King of Spain has honour; his ministers, and those of Austria have a thousand honours! But where were they all when my inexpugnable honour was calumniated and betrayed? Where, when the man they durst not bring to an open trial, was committed to the dungeons of the Inquisition, to be silently, and securely, murdered?"

Louis acknowledged the justice of his father's indignation against the ministry of Spain; yet enforced the Queen's persuasions for his return; and dwelt on the glorious result of the public trial she had absolutely promised him; and his own consequent satisfaction in pronouncing a general forgiveness on the misguided people, who were still the objects of his paternal love.

Ripperda walked the room during this discourse; and when it ended, gave no other reply to its arguments, than pronouncing a brief and solemn curse upon the whole land. Louis shuddered, as he gazed on the working brow of that still noble countenance; and with a self-control, that surprised even himself, commenced a new train of persuasions, to induce his father to resume his first intention of passing over to Gibraltar. He laid before him the advantages of seeking an asylum in England; where he might live with honour in the bosom of his family; and under the protection of a Government constituted to revere his virtues.

"But here," said he, "what can your free spirit expect in a land of slaves?"

Ripperda drew near him. That mouth, on which the graces once played, was distorted by a smile of such triumphant malice, that his son recoiled.

"In the name of God, my father! what is it you intend?"

"I will tell you Louis;" returned he, "when I hear you repeat your oath to adhere to your father against Earth and Heaven. Grapple with me, my son, in this overthrow of our oppressors; and the name of Ripperda shall redeem itself!"

The eyes of Ripperda shot terrific fires as he spoke; and Louis, direfully convinced of his fears, answered with assumed calmness:—

"All that the laws of Earth and Heaven, and my own devoted heart, dictate as duty to my father, I am ready to perform. To follow you whithersoever you go; to abide with you, even in this worse than wilderness, if it be your decisive will!"

Ripperda walked several times up and down the apartment. Several times he glanced suspiciously towards his son; and stopped opposite to him, as if he were going to speak; then turned away, and resumed his perturbed pace. A consuming impatience inflamed every feature; and, once or twice, he took out his watch, and looking at it, muttered to himself.—At last, abruptly drawing near his son, he snatched the cross of the Amaranth from his breast, and scornfully exclaimed.—

"If you would belong to me, forswear all of which this is the emblem."

Louis was dumb.—The Duke resumed with wild solemnity.

"One night in the Alcazar,—when my gaolers had left me no other light than my injuries,—I bethought me who raised those walls!—In the black darkness of my prison, I saw a host,—they who fell in the passes of Grenada! And from that hour, the soul of Aben Humeya passed into my breast. Yon is my ensign!" He pointed to a crescent, on a standard in a far corner of the room. Louis still gazed on him without speaking; but the apprehension in his mind was in his looks.

"Do not mistake me," rejoined the Duke, "my injuries have not made me mad; but they have driven me to a desperation that will prove you to the heart. Are you now willing to go, where I shall go; to lodge, where I shall lodge? Shall my God, be your God? And my enemies, your enemies? Or, am I cast out, like Ismael, to find my revenge on them who mock me—alone?"

Louis had now subdued the effect of his fears, and rallied himself to argue again with his father, as man with man. He could not penetrate the whole of the threats he had heard; yet his rapid arguments embraced every possible project of revenge. The Duke listened to him with stoical apathy. But when the energetic pleader dwelt on the heinousness of coalescing with the enemies of the Christian faith, in any scheme of vengeance against its professors, Ripperda interrupted him with a withering laugh.

"What, if I make their faith my own?"

"Impossible!" cried Louis, "you whose life has been a transcript of your faith; noble and true! It is not in you, my father, to desert a religion whose founder was perfectly holy, just, and merciful; to embrace the creed of an impostor! One whose life was polluted with every vice; and whose blasphemous doctrines sanctioned oppression, and privileged murder! Oh, my father, it is not in you to become the very thing that excites your vengeance."

As Louis continued a still more earnest appeal to his understanding and his conscience, Ripperda suddenly stopped before him.

"You may spare your arguments, De Montemar; I know all you would say; but it is my choice to be a Mussulman."

His son's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth; but he forced himself to say: "Your choice to abjure the religion you believe? To cast from you your God, and your redemption?"

"It is my choice to be revenged!" cried the Duke, gloomily striking his sword; "we will talk of redemption hereafter."

"Oh my father, it may then be too late!"

"My soul on the issue!" returned he, with a second horrible smile; "you are brave and daring, and will not shrink from the adventure. You will buckle your life to your father's in the desperate leap!"

He grasped his son's arm as he spoke, and looked in his face with a fierce resolution, which menaced some terrible judgement on the reply he seemed to anticipate. A low monotonous cadence of many voices, chanting a few dismal notes in regular rise and fall, broke the awful pause. Ripperda dropped the arm he held, and calmly said:

"They come! In another hour, I shall be sealed an enemy of Christendom."

Louis comprehended all that was intended.

"By the Saviour you outrage in the dreadful intent!" cried he, "I demand of you not to incur the deep perdition! By the honour and renown you so richly possess, I conjure you not to consign all at once to such universal infamy! By the memory of my mother, now in the heaven from which you would seal your everlasting banishment,—I implore you to remember that you are a Christian! That you are the Duke de Ripperda! That you are my father."

With the last words, Louis sunk on his knees, and forcibly added: "my life and your salvation hangs on this dreadful hour!"

All the passions of his nature were now in arms in the breast of Ripperda. The boiling flood rushed to his brain, and pressed upon the nerve that shook the seat of reason. He looked askance upon his son with a horrible expression in his eyes. It spoke of suspicion, of scorn, even of hate.

"De Montemar!" cried he "what would ye yet with one who reads you as you are? What dare you expect from a father, who sees the desertion you meditate? I will not be trifled with; for I cannot be deceived. Be with me or against me! a Mussulman, or an enemy! For in this hour I forswear all connection with the Christian world; all honour to the name of——."

But ere he could pronounce the fatal abjuration, an awful cry from his son arrested the concluding words. It was the cry of a pleading angel, at the bar of Eternal Judgment. With its piercing, beseeching appeal, he stretched forth his arms to Heaven, supplicating its mercy to defend his father from himself. At this juncture, the door opened, and Martini announced the arrival of the sacred deputation. The Duke snatched his hand from the grasp of his son; Louis seized his robe.

"Never will I leave you," cried he, "till you consent to quit these enemies of your honour and of your soul!"

"Release me, on the peril of your life!" returned his father, with a desperation equal to his own; but with a something added to it, that made Martini draw a few steps nearer to the defenceless Marquis.—Ripperda's fingers wandered over the hilt of a poniard that was in his girdle.—

"Could my blood expiate the offence of Spain, and not pollute my father's hand," cried Louis, "I would say, take the life you gave.—Oh, at any sacrifice, but that of soul and spirit, leave this accursed land!—If your freedom be pledged to these barbarians, give them my youth and vigour in exchange.—Let them drink my blood.—Let them, cover me with insults and oppression!—Only, do you fly;—fly, my father, and save me from veiling my eyes in the dreadful day of Judgement!"

Ripperda did not answer; for his possessed mind heard not what was said.—He continued gazing on his son, with a terrible fixture of eye, while he only appeared to listen; and in the moment the sounds ceased, he burst into a tremendous laugh; and attempted, by a force, almost preternatural to break from his clinging arms. But the filial heart was stronger than the madness of revenge. Louis grasped his knees, exclaiming, in the agony of his spirit— "Oh, God, be my advocate!"

At that moment a clenched hand fell on his forehead with the weight of death. Louis felt no more, for the blow was in his soul. His nerveless fingers relaxed their hold;—he fell prostrate;—and Ripperda rushed from the apartment.

CHAP. IV.

When Louis awoke to recollection, he found himself lying on a mat, on a stone floor, and in a dark apartment. A strange mingling of heavy sounds murmured in his ear, as, with a confused sense of suffering and of misery, he strove to recall past events. Such shades are of speedy conjuration. Where he was, he could not guess; but he soon remembered where he last knew consciousness: he too well remembered the last scene which had met his eyes. Almost believing himself in some Moorish dungeon, he turned his languid frame, in the resignation of utter hopelessness. His hand touched a human face. He raised himself on his arm, and found some one extended on the bare ground, near him, and, by the hard breathing, in a profound sleep.

"Some unhappy wretch, like myself!" murmured he, and fell back upon his bed. Whether he slumbered, or mused, he knew not; but he continued to lie in a quiet, dreamy consciousness of irremedible misery.

A sound creaked in the darkness. He turned towards it and saw a door opened at the extremity of the apartment by a shadowy figure, which put its hand in for something that hung against the wall, and then withdrew. A faint light glimmered from under the now open portal. For some minutes, he could discern nothing distinctly; but the light suddenly became vivid, and he had a clear, though transitory view of the adjoining chamber. It seemed vaulted; and a number of men and women were seated on the floor, round a heap of burning logs. Some smoked segars; others spoke in whispers; some chanted low and dirge-like tunes; while the rest silently applied to their flaggons, or fed the fire with broken boughs. A high wind raged without; which, making its way through the ill-contrived fastenings of this rugged abode, blew the ashes and live embers over the wild group. Some had dropped asleep, and lay in various attitudes, with their heads on their knees, or leaning against the nearest substance for a pillow. The women, whose figures were huge as their male companions, were apparently more robust, for they did not seem to need the same restorer of nature. When all the men were crouched down on their rocky bed, these beldames drew closely around the fire; and bending over it, as if brooding incantation, conversed with each other in low, grumbling tones. At last, they, too, successively dozed over the dying embers, till the whole was involved in total silence. The fire went perfectly out; and Louis' over-strained nerves sunk into a kind of night-mare repose. About dawn he was aroused by a stir in the next chamber. The noise had the same effect upon his companion, who awoke with a deep sigh. The person rose, and, leaving the vault, shut the door. All now was darkness; and the lumbering bustle without, mingling with the voices of men and women, gradually augmented to uproar; till, sinking by the same gradations, every sound ceased, and the whole became profoundly still.

It was indifferent to Louis what passed; tumult, or silence; whether he were still in the world, or committed to a living grave. He was not himself; for the shock he had received had fevered his brain; and he lay, as if the horrible past, and the inexplicable present, were only parts of the same irksome dream. His eyes were closed, in this carelessness of observation, when a ray gleamed through their lids. He opened them instinctively, and saw the white light of day streaming through the open door, and Lorenzo bending over him. His torpid faculties aroused themselves at sight of the well-known countenance; and the faithful servant as gladly made a response, which answered the demand of where they were, though he could hardly speak for joy, at seeing his master restored from the stupor, which had immediately followed his recovery from the swoon in which Martini had committed him to his arms in the felucca.

Lorenzo related, that, without a word of explanation, his brother had ordered him to accompany the Marquis immediately back to the opposite coast; and that, though Rodrigo's vessel could not so instantly return, a comrade's boat was soon obtained, which landed them both at the place of their former embarkation. The smugglers advised, and assisted him, to carry his insensible charge up the mountain, to take a safe repose in the cavern. There, they found their wives waiting to receive them. But these women seemed to have nothing of the sex but the name. They saw the pale, and scarcely breathing form of the Marquis de Montemar, carried by them into the interior den, without a glance of pity. He was a Grandee! one of those, whose family had held rule in Spain; and, some day, he might be as ready as any of them, to drag to execution the very men who now gave him shelter! This passed in the minds of these women, as they joked on the great ladies who might then be weeping the unexplained absence of the handsome Cavalier; and they exulted in the idea, that not one female hand of the disdained gipsey tribe, would condescend to smooth the pillow, or bestow a look, on the object of so many courtly sighs.

As Lorenzo had marked these women, and their haughty rejection of their husbands' orders, to administer to the comfort of their guest; he feared their more active malice; and was not a little rejoiced when their whole train parted in the morning on their various trafficks, and he was left alone to convey his master from the cavern in the best way he could. Finding him restored to sensibility and speech, he did not venture to ask him the cause of his so terrible trance; for Martini had warned him, neither to make such enquiries himself; nor to satisfy the curiosity of persons in Spain, by recounting any part of the incidents in the Sierra de Ronda, nor hinting at his transitory visit to the opposite coast.

Louis listened, with a very few observations, to all that Lorenzo said. As the fresh and balmy air of the morning breathed into the cavern, his frame became braced; and, though still bewildered in his thoughts, he rose; and walking out into the dell before the cave, dispatched his companion to procure mules, for re-crossing the mountains. The animals were soon on the rock: and, with an aimless mind, he commenced his return to Madrid. A film was over every faculty, as he mechanically pursued his journey. Lorenzo watched anxiously the rayless fixture of his eye, which turned to no object, nor his ear to any sound, during their rapid posting through the champaign country. But all his haste was vain to check the fire that was preying on his master's veins; or to arrive at Madrid, where alone he could expect relief or comfort.

In the Val de Penas Louis became too ill to proceed; and, happily, the alarming symptoms seized him in sight of a monastery. Lorenzo, left him in the carriage, and went forward alone to solicit the hospitality of the Brotherhood. They were as eager to bestow, as he to ask, the benevolence required; and Louis soon found assistance under their charitable roof.

For three long weeks, he lingered between suffering and the grave. His fever was on the nerves, and attended with delirium, and every other prognostic of a speedy termination of his days. Lorenzo shared the constant vigilance of the good Fathers, in watching by his side; and at the commencement of the fourth week, the delirium left him. His present recovery to recollection was not like that in the cave, dim and distressing. He spoke with so much strength of voice, and clearness of perception, that his affectionate attendant was transported with hope; but the priest, who considered it as a last gleam from the departing soul, (which often sheds its brightest beam on the earth it leaves for ever,) bade the happy Lorenzo wait without for a few minutes, while he discoursed, as became his faith, with the restored Marquis.

When he found himself obeyed, and that he was alone with his patient, he cautiously apprised him of his approaching dissolution; and then as piously exhorted him to dedicate the sane hour which had been granted to him, in making his peace with God. "I have one act to perform," said he, "before I am called into the presence of my only father. Give me writing materials."

The monk laid paper before him, but held the pen in his own hand.

"Dictate, and I will write, what, I trust will bring peace to your soul."

"No," replied Louis, "my own hand alone must record what is on my soul. And no eye, Lorenzo,"—he looked for that faithful servant, and finding him absent, requested the monk to call him in. "He must be a witness, with you Father, that the probably altered characters are mine."

Lorenzo was summoned, and the monk briefly told him the cause. He was transfixed, till the gentle voice of his master addressed him.

"Lorenzo," said he, "your fidelity to me has been more that of a brother than of a servant. I trust you with the charge of my last testament, for I know you will execute it, as if my eye were then looking upon you."

Lorenzo did not speak, but put to his lips the trembling hand that took the pen from the friar.

Louis passed an hour in writing. Both witnesses sat at a distance; Lorenzo, with his face bent down on his knees; and the priest, marvelling within himself, at the firmness with which the dying Marquis pursued his task. His eyes receded not once from the paper, nor did his fingers relax, while, with determined truth, he related all that had passed in the Hambra between him and his father; yet in the dreadful confession, he pleaded his almost belief, that calamity had disordered the senses of his unhappy parent. On these grounds, he implored the Marquis Santa Cruz, (to whom the paper was addressed,) not only to conceal this tale of shame from every hostile eye; but by the friendship he once felt for both father and son, and by his vows of Christian charity, to leave no means unexerted to re-call Ripperda from his apostacy.

"If I deceive myself," continued this pious son, "in believing the existence of that mental derangement, which would once have been my most fearful deprecation, but since this direful crime is now my fervent hope, many would tell me I must despair of his salvation. My trust is in an higher judgement. In him who blessed me with such zeal as your's, to be his minister to my erring parent; in him who promises pardon to the penitent; and to whom all that seems impossible to man, is as already done.

"In this faith I shall lay down my head in the grave, with perfect confidence that a way is open by which the unhappy abjurer of his Saviour's name, may yet be received to mercy. In the world to come, I may hope to embrace my father, reconciled to his God and washed from every worldly stain! Meanwhile, in this my last act, I recommend him to your sacred exhortations:—To the prayers of my saint-like uncle of Lindisfarne."

Here Louis paused, and a tear fell upon the paper. It was the first that had moistened the burning surface of his eye, since the calamity which had stretched him on that bed of death. It mingled with the ink in writing the dear and honoured name.—He resumed.

"This paper must pass from your hands, my revered friend, to his. Let those kindred eyes alone share the confidence of this sad narrative. Let him know that his nephew, the child of his nurture, dies happy! Happy in the hope that is, and that which is to come."

As he added an awful farewell to his beloved aunt and cousins, a crowd of tender recollections thronged upon his soul. He hastily addressed the packet to the Marquis Santa Cruz. Besides this comprehensive letter, he wrote the few brief lines which comprised his will; and the monk and Lorenzo having signed it, a seal was affixed to its cover. The abbot was summoned to dispatch the one to Madrid; and Lorenzo received the other, to convey to Lindisfarne, when his beloved master should be no more.

This duty done, Louis sunk exhausted on his pillow. But the cord on his heart was taken off. The benign image of his earliest friend, like the vision of a ministering angel, had unloosed it; and a holy dew seemed poured upon the desart of his soul. As he laid himself back on the bed whence he expected never to rise again, he thought of the only hand which he wished could have given him the last bread of life; the only hand he could have wished might have closed his eyes, when temporal life was fled. He wept at the distance which separated him from that father of his moral being; he wept, that he must breathe his last sigh on a stranger's bosom. But his spirit was resigned; and, as his tears ceased to flow, he gently fell asleep.

CHAP. V.

During the confinement of Louis in the monastery of Val de Penas; and while the Marquis Santa Cruz, and the Queen of Spain, were alike wondering at no intelligence having arrived from him since his departure from Madrid; news of various kinds created as various perplexities in the cabinet of the King.

Two Spanish galleons had been taken by a fleet of Barbary corsairs. The coasts of the Mediterranean were filled with pirates of every-sized vessel, manœuvred with a courage and a skill that baffled every art to avoid them; and while this extraordinary accession to the Barbary marine arose on the sea like an exhalation, a Moor, under the name of Aben Humeya, as suddenly made his appearance in Morocco, carrying all before him in the field and in the state. He possessed the confidence of Abdallah, without a rival; and, after having discomfited that monarch's rebellious kinsman Muley Hamet, was advancing at the head of his victorious army to redeem to the Emperor the possession of Ceuta:—the Gibraltar of the Spaniards on the African shore.

Hostilities were at this time hanging in the balance between Great Britain and Spain, on account of Gibraltar; and to awe the replies of the Britannic minister to its demanded restitution, an army of twenty-five thousand men, (which were on their march to Italy to effect a similar object on the duchies of Parma and Placentia,) were ordered to fall back, and make demonstrations towards the British fortress. Part of this army were in Valentia; and on a second courier arriving from Ceuta with intelligence that Aben Humeya had concluded a treaty defensive and offensive between the Moorish Emperor, and the other Barbary Powers, King Philip saw the necessity of detaching one division at least to the protection of his African dominions. He appointed Santa Cruz to the command; but on some strange inconsistent and perverse arguments of his ministers, when the Marquis appeared for his last directions, His Majesty informed him, that a thousand men were sufficient to raise the siege. If more were necessary, they should be sent; but too formidable a body at first, would only increase difficulties, by raising the consequence of a Barbarian chief in the eyes of Christian Europe. Santa Cruz saw that the jealousy of the ministers against himself was the origin of this damp on the first vigorous proposal of the King; but determined to do his own duty at least, he acquiesced, and withdrew from the royal presence. He made a rapid journey to Val del Uzeda where he found his son just arrived from Italy; and giving him orders to hold himself in readiness to accompany any second detachment to Ceuta, he took a parental farewell of his family, and returned to Madrid. In the same evening that he alighted at his own hotel he received the packet from Louis de Montemar, and had a long and distressing conversation with the friar, who brought it.

The contents of the letter filled him with astonishment and trouble. He had no need of further investigation, to conclude who was the Aben Humeya, who was putting so new and menacing a face on every thing in Barbary; and considering that circumstances demanded the disclosure to the Queen, he hastened to the palace. A private audience was immediately granted, and the letter of the dying son of the lost Ripperda confided to Her Majesty.

Isabella read it with indignation. Ripperda's treasures had then spread the Spanish seas with depredators; his domination had concentrated the states of Barbary into one interest; his resentment had turned their whole force against the power of Spain! She had but one policy; to wrest this mighty Son of Vengeance from his passion and his influence. And, having determined it as most prudent to conceal the discovery from the King and his ministers, she gave her present counsellor carte blanche, to reconcile Ripperda on any terms; and, should his more worthy son be found alive, she commanded that he should be made the agent with his father.

"But, should he be no more?" inquired the Marquis, with a sigh which could hardly have been deeper for his own son.

"Then," replied she, "you must chuse another embassador. I will reward him, according to his success with this formidable renegado." With this commission, though without a hope of seeing the son of Ripperda yet an inhabitant of this world, Santa Cruz took the convent in his way to the plains of Valentia. When he alighted at the gate, the Abbot met him; and answered to his fearful question, "That the Marquis de Montemar not merely breathed, but he trusted was far advanced in his recovery."

From the night in which the dispatch left him, the virulence of the fever disappeared. He felt and bewailed himself as a man; and the fiend which despair had locked within his bosom, fled with the genial flood. He remained in a state of calm that astonished himself; while it amazed all around, to see one who was a heretic, so evidently comforted by an influence from on high.

Santa Cruz sent to inform him of his arrival, and was immediately admitted to his cell. Lorenzo withdrew as the Marquis entered. Louis was dressed in his usual cloaths, but from present weakness yet lay on a couch. The window of his cell was open to admit the mountain air, which blew fresh and cheeringly over his face. That face was not to be described:—It spoke of heaven, and his whole form harmonized with the celestial witness.

Santa Cruz stopped and gazed on him; while Louis, raising himself on his arm, stretched his hand towards him with a smile that made the veteran's head bow before the youthful saint. He advanced and embraced him. Louis bent his face upon the Marquis's hand.

"You will live my son!" cried Santa Cruz, in a burst of manly sensibility; "you will recover your father to his God, and to his country!"

"I could wish to live for that purpose!" replied Louis, "but be it as heaven wills. My prayers may be effected without my own agency."

When recovered from his emotion, the Marquis communicated his present commission; and in recapitulating the tidings from Morocco, the mantling colour on the hectic cheek of Louis shewed, that he too, recognised his father in the new Aben Humeya. In narrating the rapid successes of the apostate Duke, Santa Cruz dwelt on one circumstance, which contained some antidote to the poison of the rest.

Muley Hamet, with a large army of disaffected Moors, had appeared on the plain of Marmora, about half a day's journey from the capital of Morocco. Aben Humeya assembled the household troops; and on the same day the tidings arrived, marched to oppose him. His forces were inferior in number to the enemy; but their leader gave them an example of confidence, telling them they must strictly obey his orders, and on his head he would assure them victory. Muley Hamet practised the usual Moorish stratagems, which the discipline of his adversary so completely baffled, that enraged with disappointment he dared a general engagement in the very worst position he could have chosen. Aben Humeya had drawn him into the declivities of the mountains, where the cavalry, his principal strength, could not act; and sending a detachment to block up the regress, by occupying the pass of Cedi Cassem, the rebel Prince suffered a total defeat. Every soul might have been cut off, but the new Mussulman had not yet forgotten the warfare of Christian nations. He called to his men to remember that the misguided followers of Muley Hamet were their brethren; and that after the signal chastisement they had received, it was the victor's duty to suffer the escape of the remnant. Aben Humeya pursued the same conciliatory conduct in taking Tetuan and Arzilla from the power of the rebel; and an offer of general pardon being spread amongst the refractory Moors, the troops of Muley Hamet deserted to his adversary, and he fled to the mountains.

"This consummate policy is the Duke de Ripperda's," said the Marquis; "and the Duke in his sanest mind."

"I would draw another inference from such policy," rejoined his son, "that whether his mind be in full health or disordered, this mercy is a sure pledge, the Christian principle remains in his heart."

"There is no disordered intellect in these plans and executions;" returned Santa Cruz, "but a stretch of capacity, and an extravagant exertion of its power, which compels common minds to pause and wonder. Genius, however, may often be mistaken for madness; for it frequently acts so entirely under the influence of imagination, as to do things so utterly irrational, that if it be not the effect of an absolute want of reason, it is certainly that of a dereliction from reason, and produces the consequences of madness."

Louis knew to whom this latter remark might have too well applied, and with stifled emotion, he answered:—

"That conduct then, is most likely to be according to good judgement, which is actuated by sober experience alone."

"That conduct," replied the Marquis, "which avoids the enthusiasm of fancy and the passions, as he would the shoals and quicksands of the sea! But there is something more required than sober experience. A well regulated mind must sit in judgement upon that experience; and, my dear de Montemar," continued he, pausing, and impressively pressing his hand, "wisdom and virtue will be the issue."

Louis returned to the last act of his father upon the plains of Marmora. It obliterated the phrenzied moment of their parting; and opening his heart to a dawn of hope, he took the letter of the Queen, which her own hand had addressed to the banished Ripperda, and putting it in his bosom, told his veteran friend he was ready once again to visit the African shores.

This re-animation was not transitory. Santa Cruz was to set off the following morning towards his army; and having calculated the slower progress of troops to the coast, and the usual delays in getting on board the transports, a day was fixed for Louis joining him, without any dangerous haste, at the place of embarkation.

Youth and inward vigour, with the bracing, life-inspiring air that is breathed from the lips of a friend, restored Louis to such a strength, that at the time appointed, he appeared on the quarter-deck of the Trinidada, the vessel that was to bear Santa Cruz to the Mahommedan shore.

Unconscious of the wound they probed, the officers of the General's staff discoursed largely on the crusade to which they were going; and descanted with unrestrained freedom on the Moorish leader. Some affirmed him to be an Arab; others a brother of the Emperor, who was so distinguished in their father's life-time, as to awaken the jealousy of Abdallah; and on his accession, the Prince suddenly disappeared. Rumour spoke of the bow-string; but hints being also spread, of a perpetual imprisonment in the seven towers of Mequinez, it was afterwards supposed that he had purchased liberty and honour by assuming a new name, and fighting the battles of his brother.

Louis could not bear these guesses; nor the invectives, (to the justice of which his own heart assented,) in which these young men indulged against the renegadoes at the court of Abdallah. Sidi Ali, a Sicilian apostate, and a celebrated engineer, was most especially the object of their anathemas; as, from his skill, they expected some protraction in the glory of repelling Aben Humeya from the walls of Ceuta. When these discussions began, Louis usually retired to a distant corner on the quarter deck, to commune with his own thoughts; and while his upright mind armed itself in its own integrity, his body derived its wonted vigour from the genial breezes of the sea.

On the night of the sixth day after they had set sail from the port of Carthagena, the little fleet entered the bay of Ceuta; and, on a wave smooth as glass, the troops stepped into boats which rowed them to the perpendicular walls of the town. Here all was deep shadow. Louis saw nothing through the universal blackness. Nor did he note the dreary splashing of the boats in the fathomless water; nor did he feel the chilling vapour which arose from its cold surface, withheld from evaporation by the height and closeness of the outworks. He was in the first pinnace; and had no thought, nor observation, but for the object of their landing.

An archway, and a long flight of steps in the rock between two walls, were the only egress on this side into the fortress. The boats crowded to the spot, where their crews severally leaped on the narrow platform, and ascended the stony ladder. A light heart was in every brave breast; and plumed with anticipated victory, they seemed to fly. Louis alone, whose whole soul was once as much on the wing for military atchievements, moved with a slow, but a firm step; for, against whom was the sword of his first field to be drawn?

On entering the fortress he fully understood how necessary was all this silence in gaining the shore. Count de Blas the governor, informed the Marquis Santa Cruz, that the Moors were in great force before the town. That several skirmishes had taken place between the corps of observation from the garrison, and the advanced posts of the Moresco camp. The Spaniards had been beaten in with loss; and in short, so universal a panic prevailed in the garrison, no confidence could be put in its steadiness in case of an attack. The consequence was already seen, in the audacity with which Aben Humeya was opening his trenches; and until Santa Cruz arrived, De Blas was in nightly dread of an attempt being made to storm the town. To prevent this, he suggested the advantage of the new troops surprising the Moors by an immediate sally.

Prior to Aben Humeya having taken up this position, the Count continued to say, he had reduced the whole of the rebellious Bashas to the obedience of their Emperor. Their leader Muley Hamet, had extended his flight from the hilly country, to the deserts of Taffilet; and Abdallah, that very morning, had sent a deputation of his royal brothers to invest Aben Humeya, with the dignity of Basha of Tetuan; and to present him with a new banner, on which was embroidered:—

"Proceed! to exceed is no longer possible!"

Santa Cruz replied to the urgency of de Blas for an immediate attack, that he had orders from his sovereign to act with peculiar circumspection. He must communicate with the Moorish general; and to do this with the necessary knowledge, he must have time to make his military observations, and to estimate their relative strength.

In the course of these investigations, in the prosecution of which Santa Cruz was always attended by Louis, the group of observation mounted on a redoubt far to the front in the Spanish lines. The Marquis contemplated with his glass the order, and scientific precision with which the enemy's works were advancing. The Count de Blas stood near him, and expatiated with much heat, on the probable effects of the new discipline introduced into the Moorish army by its present chief.

"But these European tactics" cried he, "are engrafted on a true barbarian soil. One flag of truce, that I ventured to dispatch merely to gain time, was fired on in its return; and in attempting to make good its retreat, a party of the enemy rushed from behind yon epaulement to the left, and took the whole troop to a man. One who made his escape, informed me, the proud Aben Humeya chose to take offence at some want of official reverence in the Spanish officer's manner of quitting the camp; and that the moment he was told of it, he ordered him to be pursued and taken; and at the same time denounced a similar fate on all who should henceforward presume to bear any Spanish flag within reach of his lines."

While the Governor was speaking, a squadron of Moors turned that very side-work, and presented themselves on the plain, glittering in all the splendid array of the Basha's peculiar suite. In the midst of the groupe, which immediately parted to short distances, Louis beheld an august figure. De Blas instantly proclaimed it to be Aben Humeya. In that clear atmosphere, no glass was necessary to note an object just without the reach of musquet shot; and to observe this, Louis's whole soul was in his eye.

At sight of the Basha, the acclamations of the Moors in the trenches were loud and incessant. He was mounted on a black horse, whose rich caparisons seemed to vie with the habit of its rider. The dress of the new Mussulman was loose of blue and gold tissue over a yellow caftan embroidered with gold. His belt, and the arms which stuck in it, were studded with jewels; and a splendid cymetar hung at his side. His turban was crested with a large jewelled crescent and heron plume. And the bridle in his hand sparkled with brilliant studs; while the magnificent housings of his horse, almost touched the ground. Aben Humeya rode forward, and again the air was rent with shouts. He bowed his head, and at the motion of his hand, the whole was respectfully silent. A flourish of wind instruments succeeded, and his suite began to play their evolutions before him, in all the various exercises of the lance and dart.

Louis could not mistake the demeanor of his father. But all this supremacy over the rest of mankind in personal dignity and grace, seemed to his virtuous son, only a garment of mockery to the fallen spirit within. It was horrible in his eyes, and he turned silently from the vociferous observations of de Blas.

That same evening Santa Cruz ordered a flag of truce to be in readiness for the Moorish camp at day-break. At the mention of so dangerous an expedition, every motion was arrested amongst the class of officers who were usually selected for that duty. None spoke. But Santa Cruz neither addressed any, nor looked on any; for the forlorn hope on this enterprize was already chosen.

When Louis came in the morning for his last orders, he found the Governor with his General, remonstrating on the madness of exposing so distinguished a young man as the Marquis de Montemar, in so perilous a hazard. Santa Cruz repeated to his young friend, all the intimidating representations of De Blas, who added there was not a man in the garrison, who did not shrink from being his escort.

Louis bowed gratefully to the implied solicitude of the Count; but answered the Marquis, by requesting to have the white flag delivered to him, when he would go alone. To hamper him with cowards, Santa Cruz thought would only invite danger; and he put the flag into his hand.

Louis left the gates, with no other companion than his courage and his faith. Santa Cruz's anxious eye watched the desperate adventure. The works were crowded in every part, to witness his progress and reception. At a given spot, he halted to unfurl his white banner. Again he shot forward, waving its staff before him, to be seen by the Moorish out-posts as he advanced within their fire. A hundred turbans emerged from the nearest trenches:—while a yell of such horrid import burst from every mouth, that his horse started back on his haunches, with a strange noise from its nostrils fully descriptive of surprize and terror. Nothing, however checked its rider. He struck his spurs into the animal, and resumed his onward speed at the moment the savage cries from below were echoed by a thousand voices from the works above;—a volley of musquetry was discharged, and Louis was lost in the smoke, from the eyes of them who watched on the walls of Ceuta. It cleared away; and the resolute bearer of the flag was yet seen galloping towards the camp. Another volley succeeded, and the plain was again obscured: vengeance alone occupied the breasts of the men upon the Spanish lines. Their courage revived with their indignation; and rushing without command from a salley port, they charged fiercely towards the point of their revenge. At sight of this sortie, a similar detachment issued from the gates of the camp. The horse of Louis was transfixed by two balls; and lay struggling on the ground. He had extricated himself from the dying animal, and was risen from its side, just as the salley-port of Ceuta opened to rescue or avenge him. When on foot, the broken ground in the plain concealed his advance to his friends until he rejoined them, and mounted a horse presented to him by his faithful Lorenzo.

This circumstance being discerned by Santa Cruz, who stood on the redoubt, the sortie was recalled, and Louis, with the troop, re-entered the garrison.

The implacable fury of this second breach of the received laws of war, inflamed the Spaniards with the most vehement indignation. There was no name, opprobrious to a man and a soldier, which they did not lavish on the fierce Aben Humeya.

Louis withdrew to the quarters of Santa Cruz. His resolution was taken; and he only awaited his sanction, to put it in execution that very night. To go by stealth into the Moorish camp, and depend on providence for conducting him to the presence of his father.

The Marquis would not hear him to an end. He regarded this last act, of firing upon a single man, as so base a proof of Ripperda's apostacy from honour as well as from religion, that he no longer retained a hope of his return to duty:—

"No, de Montemar," said he, "we must now let that alone for ever. You would only lose yourself, without recovering him."

"I should lose myself indeed," replied he, "were I to abandon the only purpose for which I came to this country; the only purpose for which, I believe my life is lengthened. He will not imbrue his hands in the blood of his own son; and, who in that camp, will dare to touch the man, of whom he will say—Let his life be protected!"

"This is delusion, de Montemar. He has abandoned his God. He has trampled on his honour. And, with these facts, there is no reasonable hope."

"My hope may be beyond reason; but it is not against it," replied he. "Grant me the means to fulfil my resolution; and, I dare promise myself, that you will, see me again."

"Never," returned Santa Cruz, "the blood of rashness shall never be on my head. Leave me now, and we will discourse of more rational projects to-morrow."

Louis obeyed. But that morrow might never occur to him. When he withdrew it was to pursue his determination. That night, alone, and unassisted, to seek the presence of his father.

CHAP. VI.

From his observations in passing the enemy's lines, he thought it possible to throw himself into one of the trenches nearest their position; and in the disguise of a Moor, return with the workmen into the camp.

By means of his devoted Lorenzo, (who would have suffered the rack, rather than betray the confidence of his master,) he procured the accoutrements of a Moresco soldier, from a Jewish merchant in Ceuta. The aspect of the night favoured his project; and he left the Spanish fortress in company with the latest outpost. The growing shadows gave him opportunity to glide from its neighbourhood unobserved; and having his disguise previously hidden amongst the ruins of an old fort midway between the Moorish and Spanish works, he covered himself with the Moresco trowsers, haigue and turban; and arming his belt with the accustomed number of knives and pistols, took his pic-axe in his hand, and cautiously proceeded along the flank of the Moorish trenches, whose line he discerned, by a pale and zig-zag gleam along the surface of the ground. It was too faint to be noticeable at any distance, and arose from the low lantherns within, by whose glow-worm light, when the sky was obscured, the yet inexpert engineers performed their work.

When arrived near the verge of the excavations nearest the camp, he listened breathlessly to the clash of cymbals, which announced an exchange of workmen. Now was his moment. He slid down the bank into the vacant fosse, and stood close in its angle, shrouded by complete darkness. The lamps did not extend beyond the place of immediate labour. He had hardly taken his station, when an iron gate opened into the trench, the cymbals ceased, and an advance of numerous feet from the camp sounded towards him. It was answered by a similar approach from the lines. He drew himself closer into the angle, as the latter passed him in enfilade; and observing that each man as he marched by a particular officer, cried aloud, "Lahilla Lah!" and was then counted by him, he saw the danger of being the last in the file; and stepping in between the rapid step of one soldier in turning the angle, and the halting approach of another, he repeated the expected response, and moved forward unmolested. He entered the camp without impediment; and the Moors parting to their different quarters, he turned quickly in a direction which he thought from the description of the escaped Spaniard, would bring him to the pavilion of its commander.

Excepting the words he had repeated as the parole of the night, and of the meaning of which he was entirely ignorant, he knew not a word of the Moresco tongue. The camp was partially lighted; and near the Basha's quarters the lamps became thicker, until the platform around his tent was one blaze of illumination.

Several Moorish officers were walking to and fro, as if waiting for orders; and the ample circle in which the pavilion stood, was hemmed round by the body guards of the Basha. These men were Negroes of huge proportions, and equipped in the most formidable array of Barbaric arms. They sat on the ground in the Moorish style, with each his hand on his drawn cymetar.

Louis drew into the comparative obscurity of one of the tented streets diverging from the platform; and, with a scrutinizing eye, resolved how he should pass this excluding circle. While he looked from man to man, the curtained entrance of the pavilion was drawn back by two slaves, and a blaze of flambeaux issued forth. In the midst of it was a military figure in a splendid Moorish dress. But it was not his father.

By one act, all the Negroes bent forward, and struck their foreheads to the ground; even the officers made the same abasement to this personage; who, graciously bowing his head, passed on, followed by a procession of flambeaux. But still the light was glaring as noon-day, around the tent. It was only by stratagem he could enter it, and his life must be set on the hazard.

After watching nearly an hour, to afford opportunity for some favourable accident to open him a way, without the desperate expedient he revolved, he retreated through a cross passage of dark tents, that led into the great illuminated avenue before the pavilion; and, having wrapped his mother's picture, which he always wore round his neck, in a silk handkerchief he had about him, he put it in his bosom, and then boldly plunging from the darkened street into the full light of the platform, moved direct to the curtained entrance.

In an instant a host of cymetars were at his breast. But he stood erect before them all, and exclaiming

"Aben Humeya!"

took the handkerchief from his breast, and held it forth with a commanding air towards the tent. He had not even repelled the weapons with his hand, so firm did he stand in apparent inward dignity. It awed the negroes, who stood for a moment gazing on each other; Louis profited by their suspended faculties, and was passing on, when one in the dress of an officer intercepted him. He addressed the intruder in a barbarous attempt at the Moresco language, but really in a jargon, comprised of every tongue on the Mediterranean shores; and saluting Louis by the opprobrious appellation of slave, demanded, with other viler epithets, how he presumed to violate that sacred threshold.